Hackett in the News – 2012

December 13, 2012

Firms are run out of jobs suitable for moving to low-cost countries. According to research from The Hackett Group, challenges facing the Indian offshoring market include local wage inflation and increase in competition from other low-cost labour markets.

December 1, 2012

Europe's largest companies are still wasting millions each year through inefficient use of working capital, according to recent research. But improving a company's working capital requires organisational changes that reach far beyond the treasury department. In this article we look at how some corporates have been using pay-incentives to encourage cross-collaboration and to produce sustainable improvements to working capital performance.

November 28, 2012

Efficient working capital management can improve cash generation, funding capacity and financial structure. When working capital management is weak or deteriorates, all of these may suffer. For some types of companies, such as those in the construction or distribution sectors, working capital is at the heart of the business. Where management of working capital has been weak or has slipped, improving it can offer great opportunity for enhancing cash generation.

November 14, 2012

Business owners don't have to see red during the holidays as long as they manage their staff right. At no other time of the year do companies have to field multiple requests for time off. Handle it wrong, and it could cripple the business at an otherwise busy time of year.

November 14, 2012

Project management offices (PMOs) are starting to seem a little like the Pet Rock of the enterprise - a once wildly popular item that is seeing a dramatic drop in popularity after many people conclude they just aren't all that useful. Use of PMOs peaked in 2009 and has seemingly been falling ever since. The Hackett Group said the number of full-time employees devoted to PMO activities dropped 41 percent from 2009 to 2011.

November 8, 2012

Will most companies that implement a project management office take on higher IT costs without improving performance? That's the bold headline of a Hackett Group study of more than 200 organizations. It's not just hype: I happen to agree that the risks of a disastrous PMO implementation have never been greater.

December 7, 2012

The strike that crippled two of the nation's busiest shipping ports was settled this week, but the trend it spotlighted - the offshoring of service jobs - is expected to continue to grow across the USA. Yet service companies have been sending jobs abroad in large numbers the past decade to cut labor costs - a trend that accelerated in the recession and is expected to continue the next few years before slowing after 2016, according to The Hackett Group.

October 23, 2012

A recent study by consulting firm REL, "The Earnings Game: Is gaming the system to meet working capital targets really worth it at year-end?" examines the pressure many companies face to meet analysts' earnings expectations each quarter, as well as the gamesmanship in which some firms engage in order to make their numbers.

October 15, 2012

After years of jobs moving overseas by the million, some are trickling back. China's largest PC manufacturer, Lenovo Group, recently announced that it will open its first manufacturing plant in the U.S. For some companies, one reason to return stateside is cost. According to a study by The Hackett Group, a management consultancy, manufacturing in China has been losing its cost edge.

October 2, 2012

Nearly half of the largest publicly traded companies continue to report violent working capital swings from the fourth quarter to the first quarter each year, a practice that can mask true performance and set companies up for a cycle of year-end squeezes that damage supplier relationships and efficiency in the long run, according to a recent study by REL, a division of The Hackett Group. (Subscription Required)

October 1, 2012

Four years ago, when the financial crisis was at its destructive peak, companies began using pay incentives to hit working capital targets. Heineken USA, for example, initiated a scheme they called 'Hunt for Cash'. As part of the scheme, departments across the company - finance, treasury, commercial, supply chain, and production groups - each had cash generation incentives built into their pay. The scheme, which was strategically launched in 2007, a year before the crisis hit, gained impetus when the company took on a large amount of debt with its purchase of Scottish and Newcastle in 2008, just as credit markets had begun drying up.

September 21, 2012

U.S. could see an additional $130 billion in exports, says a new study. U.S. export growth and the shift of production back to the U.S. could create up to 5 million jobs and $130 billion in additional annual exports by 2020, according to the recent study. The report is an upward revision of a previous 2011 study that estimated near-sourcing would create up to 3 million jobs, and the most recent estimates are based on a closer study of how competitive U.S production is with that of its major rivals. The Hackett Group, a global consulting firm, however, argues that the jobs created through near-sourcing will be a near wash because of continued outsourcing.

September 10, 2012

The nondescript four and five-storey office buildings springing up on the outskirts of many Polish cities house one of the country's biggest economic success stories - thousands of office workers hunched in front of computer terminals providing accounting, IT, human resources and other back office functions for a growing number of international companies. But the boom - which has created about 90,000 jobs and made Poland the third most attractive back office location in the world after India and China, according to The Hackett Group consultancy - is in danger of coming to a rapid close.

August 30, 2012

Assuming that the recession will ever comes to an end, the ability to deploy working capital efficiently and effectively will serve as a harbinger of whether UK plc has the agility necessary to capitalise on the upturn when it eventually arrives. A study by REL Consulting of the 1,000 largest listed European groups by sales suggests that the omens are not good. The balance sheets of Europe's top businesses are bloated by billions of euros of excess capital, while billions more are being wasted as a result of inefficient cash management.

August 21, 2012

By focusing on operational imperatives and making significant process improvements and other changes to various elements of their Service Delivery Model (SDM) for business services, a typical global company (with US$33.4 billion in revenue) could cut the cost of business services by up to $302 million, or more than 25 percent, says The Hackett Group.

August 17, 2012

Prepare to be outraged: New research says business leaders are "highly dissatisfied with the level of support they receive from HR on talent issues" - and that's led to an alarming shortage of skilled employees.

August 16, 2012

The ability of the largest U.S. companies to collect from customers and manage inventory improved just slightly in 2011, while payables performance worsened, according to the 14th annual working capital survey from REL Consulting, a division of The Hackett Group, Inc. and CFO Magazine.

August 15, 2012

Recruiting gets the best of the bad news from business leaders, who say a lack of support from human resources is largely to blame for the worsening shortage of talent and skills in their work groups, according to new research from The Hackett Group. Leaders of finance, IT, procurement, and other units of some 145 major global businesses reporting getting such low levels of support from their HR colleagues that few of them say they are satisfied with any of the department's key talent management services.

August 9, 2012

It's unlikely that IT executives would set up any major outsourcing deal without third-party consultation, but IT outsourcing consultants don't come cheap. Here are nine tips to help you reduce those expenses, including insights from Hackett's Honorio Padrón and Scott Holland.

August 1, 2012

Six companies top the REL U.S. 1,000 list in terms of sustained working capital performance: Colgate-Palmolive, Cubic, Cytec Industries, Deluxe, PH Glatfelter, and Watts Water Technologies. These companies either improved working capital performance (days working capital and its three major elements) or sustained it (performance did not deteriorate by more than 5%) each year for three successive years.

August 1, 2012

It's one of the most important metrics for gauging a company's efficiency and financial health. So when a new survey of 1,000 of the largest public companies in the United States indicates that their working capital continues to be much larger than is considered prudent, that's cause for concern. The annual survey, conducted by REL Consulting, reveals an overall lack of sustained working capital improvement among U.S. companies. After a predictable decrease in working capital during the Great Recession, when companies focused more on the balance sheet, working capital performance has leveled off.

July 26, 2012

A new study shows business leaders unhappy with support from their HR colleagues in collaboration, knowledge sharing and retention. Forget the global war for talent - for now. There's a very real talent crisis within HR departments. According to a study by The Hackett Group, executives say they're getting talent management support from their HR departments less than 35 percent of the time.

July 25, 2012

European aircraft maker Airbus's new plan to locate its first North American assembly plant in Alabama generated a lot buzz about the prospects of reinvigorated American manufacturing muscle. It's perhaps the most telling recent sign of a nascent reversal of fortune at the expense of China, where wage inflation, rising shipping costs and other economic woes have cost the country an edge it enjoyed for decades as a destination for offshored production. Still, as giddy as many observers are about the trend, a new report, Reshoring Global Manufacturing, by The Hackett Group debunks the view that manufacturing capacity is returning in a big way to the West, including the U.S. The biggest beneficiaries, in fact, will be lower cost destinations such as Costa Rica, Vietnam, the Philippines and El Salvador.

July 25, 2012

Over the last few years, high unemployment rates have masked a serious business problem: the lack of available talent and an inability to manage talent in key areas, including IT. According to a new study conducted by the Hackett Group, "Cracks in the Foundation: Closing the Critical Skills Gap Undermining Business Capabilities," business leaders are now feeling the pinch. They are seeing "dangerous deficits in talent and skills, and are highly dissatisfied with the level of support they receive from HR on talent issues," the report states.

July 25, 2012

U.S. companies are leaving China and heading to other parts of the world, including back home. One of the reasons, of course, is rising wage costs in mainland China compared to other nations in the region, and declining wages in the U.S.

July 24, 2012

Seesmart Inc, a small California lighting company, used to make all of its LED products in China, but last year that started to change. A survey by the Hackett Group Inc consultancy found that 46 percent of executives at European and North American manufacturing companies said they were considering returning some production to the United States from China, while another 27 percent said they were actively planning for or are in the midst of such a shift.

July 24, 2012

European companies could improve their working capital by almost €900 billion in aggregate through better management of their receivables, payables, and inventory, a consultancy specializing in working capital management has calculated. REL Consulting, part of The Hackett Group, has analyzed the accounts of 925 companies across Europe and found that working capital performance increased slightly in 2011 (or, in fact, remained almost flat, if you exclude the volatile oil and gas sector), but that there is still €886 billion that could be squeezed out of working capital and added to corporate cash piles. That's equal to 12% of total company sales.

July 24, 2012

Spanish and Italian companies are the worst at paying their bills. But that doesn't seem to matter much: they're also the worst at collecting on their invoices. So what goes around (or doesn't) comes around (or doesn't). Those truths are supported by the findings of a working capital survey comparing 925 companies for the fiscal years 2010 and 2011 recently released by REL, a consulting firm.

July 23, 2012

According to a report by The Hackett Group, business services such as Finance, IT, and Procurement, among others, are experiencing an accelerating talent crisis due to the failure to collaborate effectively with HR.

July 18, 2012

Years of across-the-board cuts during the recession and its aftermath have left companies' business-services departments-such as IT, finance and procurement-badly weakened in terms of talent and skills, says the latest "HR Book of Numbers" report from The Hackett Group.

July 5, 2012

President Barack Obama said last month he had "good news": lost American jobs are returning to the U.S. For many other businesses, however, it still makes sense to ship them abroad. The net effect of this two-way traffic on the labor market has been virtually invisible so far and -- contrary to the administration's claims about what is known as "reshoring" -- will be for years, manufacturing specialists and economists say. "Our conclusion was a net zero," says Michael Janssen, author of a new study of the trend for the Hackett Group, a Miami-based consultancy. "Some of these jobs that are coming back get a lot of press. But there are just as many that get no press coverage still going offshore."

June 28, 2012

No company sets out to create convoluted processes supported--sometimes thwarted--by layers of overly complicated technology. But too often, that's what we face. Simplicity, on the other hand, promises clarity, speed and flexibility, not to mention lower costs in IT and other areas of the company. According to The Hackett Group Global IT Practice Leader Rich Pople, "Less complexity has material benefits to the business, not just a positive effect on IT spending."

June 28, 2012

President Barack Obama said last month he had "good news": lost American jobs are returning to the U.S. For many other businesses, however, it still makes sense to ship them abroad. The net effect of this two-way traffic on the labor market has been virtually invisible so far and -- contrary to the administration's claims about what is known as "reshoring" -- will be for years, manufacturing specialists and economists say. "Our conclusion was a net zero," says Michael Janssen, author of a new study of the trend for the Hackett Group, a Miami-based consultancy. "Some of these jobs that are coming back get a lot of press. But there are just as many that get no press coverage still going offshore."

June 24, 2012

Europe's largest companies wasted almost €800bn last year as a result of inefficient cash management, research suggests. A study of the 1,000 biggest listed European groups by sales done by REL Consulting, a division of The Hackett Group, suggests that they relaxed their efforts to improve their internal cash position.

June 12, 2012

That massive pile of cash Corporate America has been sitting on for years is shrinking, and the reason bodes well for the nation's economy. An analysis by REL Consulting, a division of The Hackett Group, shows that companies are now re-investing in anticipation of growth, with annual capital expenditures up nearly 25 percent in 2011, to pre-recession levels.

June 11, 2012

A bylined article by Hackett's Penny Weller. "A compelling business case is driving more and more enterprises toward a global business services (GBS) model. Building a mature, value-producing GBS organization requires many integrated elements and practices -- one of the most critical being the ability to measure and monitor performance in order to guide continuous improvement. The Hackett Group's recent survey found that, while GBS executives recognize the importance of monitoring performance, most are still struggling to move their metrics and measurement capabilities to the next level."

June 4, 2012

Blog posting by Contributor Tim Worstall, "I think we've all heard that there is some onshoring of manufacturing going on? That is, some companies are finding that China and the Far East just isn't a! s cheap as either they thought or as it used to be and thus manufacturing processes are being brought back to the US or Europe? While this is true this isn't going to mean though that there will be a new era of mass employment in manufacturing in the rich world countries. There's a nice report from The Hackett Group which explains part of it..."

May 31, 2012

In the last couple of years, the United States has pulled off an unexpected trick: we've started taking jobs from China. Rising labor and transportation costs abroad have changed the economic math enough that, after more than a decade of sending manufacturing overseas, companies like General Electric have started bringing some of their production lines back home. It's called "reshoring," and it's a global trend where factories have moved from the developing world to the developed world, nearer to where their products sell. How big is this movement? According to a recent report by The Hackett Group, the share of "reshored" manufacturing capacity will double from 9% between 2009 and 2011 to 19% between 2012 to 2014.

May 22, 2012

Whirlpool and other companies have begun moving some manufacturing jobs from China back to the U.S., as part of a growing reshoring trend. According to The Hackett Group's supply chain experts, several factors make some products much more likely to be candidates for reshoring, including items with high shipping costs, products where safety is paramount, and expensive items where consumer demand for specific colors or styles may change quickly. (Subscription Required)

May 21, 2012

Guest post from Pierre Mitchell, "Chief Procurement Research Officer" at The Hackett Group. Translating hard-fought negotiated savings into realized savings through contract compliance and P2P transactional compliance can be a difficult task. Doing so while creating an intuitive and compelling experience for requisitioners can be even more daunting. This will obviously require more than a by rote "drive-by sourcing" event and resultant contract thrown over the wall into a poorly designed and automated P2P process/system.

May 17, 2012

A panel discussion of new research from The Hackett Group which finds that the tide has begun to turn on the flow of manufacturing jobs from the U.S. to China. With Hackett's Dave Sievers, Scott Paul of the American Alliance of Manufacturing, and Host Dylan Ratigan.

April 11, 2012

Recent research by The Hackett Group indicates t he number of jobs in IT, finance and other business services being offshored will keep rising over the next few years -- but not for much longer than that. This ongoing trend challenges HR executives to stay on top of a shifting, globally based workforce and identify opportunities overseas -- and at home.

April 10, 2012

IT departments in North American and European enterprises with revenues of more than $1 billion were hardest hit by offshoring among all the business services sectors studied in a recent report by The Hackett Group.

April 10, 2012

As companies release first-quarter results over the next several weeks, analysts and economists will be keeping a close eye on inventories, seeking fresh insight into business confidence. Companies normally cut inventories at year-end to spruce up their balance sheets, leading to a drop in DIO. But an analysis done for CFO Journal by REL Consulting, part of Hackett Group Inc, shows that the fourth-quarter number remained flat with the third quarter. That suggests that companies held goods in their warehouses when they would typically be selling them off. (Subscription Required)

April 5, 2012

A bylined article by REL's Daniel Windauls. THE SOURCE of future growth for many European companies will occur across a set of culturally and geographically diverse countries, which include Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico and South Korea (BRICMK). As HMRC figures show, British organisations have increasing exposure to these countries, with growth occurring mostly in manufacturing sectors, which tend to be more working capital intensive. It is therefore becoming increasingly important to study their impact on net working capital (NWC) performance and how companies are managing processes to adjust to this change.

March 28, 2012

A new study by The Hackett Group claims that many U.S. tech and services jobs that have been lost to offshoring in recent years would have fallen victim to automation anyway. The paradox is that, while offshore outsourcing remains controversial, few would argue with a company's right to leverage technological automation for cost savings and competitive advantage.

March 27, 2012

Corporations in the U.S. and Europe will move an additional 750,000 jobs in IT, finance, and other business services to India and other low-cost geographies by 2016, according to new research from The Hackett Group, Inc.

March 22, 2012

The corporate drive in the U.S. and Europe to move more IT and finance jobs to India and other offshore sites will continue, with another 750,000 such positions being shifter by 2016. But levels of additional offshoring will begin to decline by 2014.

March 22, 2012

Mounting political pressure will do little to stop the flow of technology and other jobs moving offshore to low-cost destinations like India and China, new research indicates. Some 750,000 jobs in IT, finance, and other business services will be offshored from the U.S. and Western Europe to developing nations between now and 2016, according to a study released this week by the Hackett Group. Among the positions going overseas will be 270,000 IT jobs.

March 22, 2012

Guest Blog post from Scott Glen, Director, IT Practice, Archstone Consulting. CIOs who entered into long-term agreements prior to 2010 will be faced with a critical decision in 2012 -- to determine if their current provider contracts are still competitive and, if not, if they should re-source the work or renegotiate their agreements.

March 21, 2012

Offshoring IT, financial and other service jobs to India is nearing the end of its life cycle and will likely run its course within the next 8 to 10 years, according to strategic advisory and research firm The Hackett Group. The catch? The jobs won't be coming to the U.S. According to people over at Hackett, U.S. companies will simply run out of jobs which can be moved offshore to locations like India.

March 21, 2012

The number of IT jobs at large corporations is decreasing significantly, and the decline can be largely attributed to offshoring, but the trend might come to an end within 10 years as companies run out of jobs suitable for moving to low-cost countries, a new study says. The Hackett Group, a management consulting firm, examined services occupations in the bull's-eye of offshoring -- finance, human resources, procurement and IT. What it found is that, by 2016, the number of jobs available in these fields in the U.S. and Europe will have declined to about 4.5 million from 8.2 million at the start of 2002 will still exist in 2016.

March 13, 2012

Over the last few years, the pace of change in business and IT has been nothing short of remarkable. According to The Hackett Group, coping with this "new normal" requires a different outlook and approach.

March 12, 2012

As CFOs anticipate stronger growth this year, they're looking to deal with that pick-up with fewer resources. Finance chiefs who work with The Hackett Group estimate their companies' revenues will rise 7.9% this year, but say finance operating budgets will decline by 1.5% and the number of full-time finance employees will shrink 0.8%.

March 8, 2012

CFOs are focusing heavily on improvements in the accuracy and timeliness of information as part of a drive to boost their effective decision-making capability, according to research from The Hackett Group. But cost pressures may keep them from investing heavily in the effort.

February 27, 2012

As enterprises successfully acclimate to the challenges of what has become known as the "new normal," we find evidence of a growing acceptance that these changes are permanent; indeed, today's situation might be more accurately termed the "now normal." The Hackett Group's annual Key Issues Study, representing a diverse set of Global 1000 businesses and executive viewpoints, reflects that.

February 6, 2012

A guest blog by The Hackett Group's Pierre Mitchell - "Over on our World Class Procurement LinkedIn group (all practitioners welcome), we shared some of the summary findings from the 2012 edition of our annual Procurement Key Issues study we did a few months ago, and I thought the Spend Matters readership might be interested."

February 1, 2012

The U.S. Postal Service's December decision to decrease the expected standard delivery time of first-class mail to two-to-three days could have a negative impact on companies' working capital. Indeed, the move could cost a U.S. company with $10 billion in revenues up to $100 million in working capital, according to Veronica Heald, a practice leader at REL Consulting, a division of The Hackett Group that focuses on working capital.

January 31, 2012

Recession-fueled stagnation is slowly drawing to an end as U.S. companies are signaling they're ready to sink some cash into growth and emerging markets. That spells opportunity for certain IT professionals. Companies are looking to hire and retain those who are skilled in areas such as mobility, cloud computing, software development, and big data. Such is the big picture painted by two separate reports released this week. One comes from research company Hackett Group, titled "2012 IT Key Issues: Coming to Terms with the 'New Normal'."

January 30, 2012

Organizations are shifting money and commitment back to their learning and development plans -- as ways to build skills and retain talent. The format of such training continues to evolve, and employees are increasingly taking ownership of the process. The Hackett Group's Harry Osle says that "one key driver" to increased spending on learning and development is "the desire to hold on to top talent."

January 25, 2012

President Obama decried the outsourcing of jobs to foreign lands in the State of the Union last night while Steve Jobs' widow looked on. Clearly, the administration wanted Apple represented as an example of American ingenuity and success. Hackett Chief Research Officer Michel Janssen offers his insights in this piece.

January 18, 2012

With the rise of analytics and Big Data, replacements for Excel are proliferating and CFOs of companies large and small are beginning to pay attention. Sanjay Sehgal, global enterprise performance management practice leader at The Hackett Group, is quoted.

January 9, 2012

You may have heard that the U.S. Postal Service had decided to scale back operations and eliminate next-day first-class mail delivery. Then there are continued closings of smaller post offices. According to REL Consulting, a division of The Hackett Group, the elimination of next-day first-class delivery alone will slow customer collections enough to cost a typical large U.S. company up to $100 million a year. The impact on a small company won't be anywhere near as large, but it could still hurt. And if there's post office near a client, sending invoices or receiving payments could become even more difficult. If you rely on traditional mail for your business, here are some steps you can take to help avoid an impact to your cash flow.

January 1, 2012

Network Rail's Finance Shared Services was created in 2004 following a major company restructuring Steve Swientozielskyj, head of Finance Shared Services for Network Rail, says his team has generated in excess of GBP 30 million in working capital improvements and millions in annual cost savings. (Article begins on page 18)